Question about using window plastic for the winter

[scaredsi11y]

I'd like to get some feedback on this one, because we're currently stuck about how to proceed this year.

Long story short, our house is about 120 years old. Obviously, it's a bit drafty near certain windows.

Two winters ago, we put up tons of the heavy-duty plastic. Almost every window got covered. It was a pain stapling it up, and it was even worse taking it down! In the spring, I had to go around touching up the places where it chipped off the paint from the windowframes, and mr. scaredsi11y and I both ended up stepping on staples even though we thought we were very careful about cleaning them up. Frustrating. Also, the plastic was thick and ugly. Is it okay for me to admit that part of the reason I dislike it is that it just looks bad?

Last year, we didn't do anything except put up the storm windows. We kept meaning to use the plastic, but just never got around to it.

Our heating bills for both years were about the same! A friend of mine says that since gas prices have steadily risen, we could have just off-set the price increase. That doesn't make sense, though. That would account for the bills being the same only if we hadn't done plastic the first year. I can't come up with any other explanation for what happened other than... our plastic didn't do much of anything. Perhaps the furnace is less efficient now? Or last winter was just not as cold?

Le sigh.

Is it worth it to do it again this time? I don't want to waste time/energy (hah!) putting up plastic that isn't effective. We really stapled it on there good, too, and there weren't any drafty spots anymore. I think that if we do plastic this time, it'll be the kind you use a hair-dryer on. It seems like less work, maybe.

Does anyone have suggestions? We try not to waste energy in general, so this is something we want to get right! Also, the customer service at the gas company is horrendous. They have a monopoly on natural gas in our area, but if we have to be customers... at least we can use less!
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[scaredsi11y]

[PrickleyPete]

I've never heard about stapling plastic to the windows. Something I've used successfully is the shrink-wrap plastic you stick over the windows with double sided tape then use the blow dryer to tighten it. It makes a very noticible difference especially in rooms with windows on more than one side where you can usually feel the wind blowing in.

The issue I ran into was the tape not coming up but if you've been sticking staples into your walls, which is worse between tape residue or staples?
I found that using a scraper and holding a hair dryer on the tape at the same time to melt the glue worked really well to remove it, as did taking fine grain sand paper and sanding it off, then doing a slight paint touch up. But either way, those little things you do in the spring are a small price to pay for a warm house and lower heating bills.

You can get it at Home Depot in the window insulation section.

[thora]

Yep, I'm with Prickly Pete! Give the thin plastic a try this year.

I used to use it in my windows and it's pretty painless to put up and take down. I did notice that the paint came off in a few places (when I removed the double-sided tape), but it would be easy to touch up! The thin plastic isn't really all that visible either.

I'm not sure what the difference was to our heating bill, but the window wasn't nearly as drafty. I'm sure it did help the bills.

[mohawk]

Along the same lines as the window blankets, what about thermal curtains? I just put some up in our back bedroom and am AMAZED how the room now seems much warmer.

I agree that the plastic is ugly, but have used it in the past myself to varying degrees of success. This year, we just bought new energy efficient windows.

[puck]

i've been thinking about blowdryery plastic as well! our curtains are already pretty thick, so for now i've tucked them onto the windowledges where the heater is right under the window - because who wants the hot air to go behind the curtain and straight out the window?!

does anyone know if you could apply the blowdryery kind to each window so that you could potentially open them if you wanted? we have a sliding glass door that's pretty chilly, but it'd be optimal if it still... opened.
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[caropop]

scaredsilly--Since you own your home, I would suggest that in nice weather times next year, you actually look into taking your windows apart to fix any glazing or missing putty and to put weather stripping into the sashes and frames. I'm glad to hear you recognize the value of your historic windows, but want to promote the idea that they can be better than they are!
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[scaredsi11y]

[Chiquita]

If you aren't opposed to changing your widow coverings or perhaps adding to them.. there is at least one company out there that is making window shades that have an R value, for insulation. This doesn't address the issue of needing reglazing but could really help, we are going to use these on the sunniest of windows where heat is an issue.. I also created rice snakes for every window in my house, it is 80 years old! But the rice snakes only address where there are gaps between frames and not where we need to reglaze.

[checkersumthing]

When I lived with my parents, they would use the plastic of the blowdrier/two sided tape type. It seemed to work really well for keeping drafts away and wasn't super visible. They only used it on the windows that really needed it though (like the huge living room window), and not on other windows so they could open them. I don't think they ever had too much of a problem taking it off. They've since changed all their windows, and no longer need it.

That's really very odd about the heating bills being the same! Have your heating habits changed at all? Do you keep your heat set a bit lower and wear sweaters, turn down the heat at night, etc? Maybe your heating losses aren't only from your windows, but from electrical outlets too? Depending on the way your place is laid out (size of rooms versus size of windows, etc), maybe it just feels colder without the film because you can feel a draft near the window, but if you never spend any time right beside the window (and your heating system is such that the cold air near the window doesn't mix with the warm air in the rest of the room) maybe it doesn't make that much of a difference, if its just a localized draft? I'm just trying to think of posibilities, because it doesn't make sense in my mind that your bills would be the same year to year!
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[caropop]

[sexy_secretary]

I've only ever used the shrink plastic with tape (super sticky double sided tape that it comes with usually) and it did seem to make a difference, especially in my old apartment where my room was about 10 degrees colder than anywhere else in the house and where the thermostat was (horrible design. total energy sucker.). In Massachusetts at least, I found that most landlords didn't care if a little bit of the window sill got dirty or paint peeled because of the tape because pretty much everyone did the same thing every winter so we all just dealt with it. I imagine it is not the same for every landlord.

I'm curious about the stapling. I have never heard of anyone stapling it. I would imagine even if it feels like there is no big air leaks, that air could get through each individual hold made my the staples no matter how tight the plastic was to the glass. So maybe that was the problem? With the thin plastic you can pretty much always tell if it is not applied correctly because it will make noise when the wind blows.
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[knittykat]

Rice snakes! I had a rice snake in my first house. You can also make bean snakes (dried beans). Sometimes cheaper.

I just remembered my rice snake fondly :-)
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